Friday, February 16, 2007

We received a note from Greg Ketter that DreamHaven Books was broken into this week, and though insurance will cover what was taken, the robbers wreaked havoc, destroying the office, etc. More about this can be found on Neil Gaiman's blog. This is a hard hit for them, and they are an important part of the community. Please take a moment to look at their online catalog, show some love, and buy something you've been wanting.

On that note, I like a good deal as much as the next person, but I also try to keep in mind that if I don't shop regularly from my local stores like Dark Carnival, Other Change of Hobbit, and Borderlands, they will go away. You can't replace the feeling of going into a brick-and-mortar store chock full of the books you want to read, yet every year we lose more specialty stores, with people shopping from the chains and online mega-retailers in increasing numbers. So in addition to taking the time to show some support for DreamHaven, remember to shop at a local bookseller, as well. Thanks.

Friday, February 09, 2007

I just converted my blog to Google, and a pile of posts came tumbling out asking to be moderated. So to all those whose posts weren't showing up (JP especially, who tried multiple times before giving up entirely) -- sorry! I wasn't deleting you, I didn't have comments set on moderate, and I have no idea why some came through but others didn't. Weird, but I'm a n00b anyway and expect stuff to not work. It seems to be fixed now, at least. And I changed the song I had up from Peachfish. Couldn't stand listening to myself sing flat!

Spike is kicking regularly, which is comforting. Without that, I have nothing other than my ever-expanding waistline to let me know things are still going well in there.

Things are crazy at The Mag. Trying to get the horror coverage together and the awards ceremony organized, while doing a Forthcoming Books issue and still looking for a replacement for Karlyn, who quit last month. So we're short-staffed and overloaded with work. Eh, business as usual, but it would be nice to have a new person in place to start picking up the slack. We'll get there. We've got a bunch of applicants, but it's such a particular kind of job....

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Memes, memes, the magical fruit...Abi, stinkbug that she is, memed me. I never do these things, but for her, this once....

And this is harder than you might think, for someone with ZERO sense of privacy. I keep thinking up these morbid confessional tidbits that won't do at all. Ah well, here goes:

1. OH, THE DOMESTICITYI knit. Not very quickly, and certainly not very well. But I do knit. I know, not exactly mind-blowing, but I'm warming up...

2. THE NICKNAMEMy nickname (in my family) is BR. At about the age of three, I announced I wanted to be a football player. To be later modified to aspirations of kangaroo-hood. This was followed by a brief period of wanting to be a bunny rabbit, which unfortunately stuck, and my nickname throughout my childhood (and for a few family members even still today) was BR. You can figure out what it's short for.

3. ZOOM-ZOOMOkay, more contemporary stuff: Every time I see one of those commercials on the telly with high-performance cars zoom-zoom-zooming along Black Rock salt flats, with their synchronized fishtailing and all that, I feel extremely jealous. I would love to drive like that. Left over from my motorcycling days, maybe. I love the feeling of riding the perfect line, but pushing it fast enough that the tires are just on the edge of tearing off the asphalt.

4. SPIKEHmm, this is getting tricky... I can do that same thing that Martin can with his eyes, in fact we compared techniques when I was out visiting in Scotland, but have no pictures of myself doing it.... That's copying, anyway. Let's see.... Oh, my yet-to-be-born baby, now a whole 22-weeks old (in utero) and who will make her grand entrance sometime this June, has been dubbed "Spike" by Gary K. Wolfe, and now is referred to by that name at The Mag. Go figger... Spike....

5. A TUNE How about a song? I doubt anyone reading this has actually heard my old band, Peachfish. This is our bass player Alex and myself, singing a "bar hall" tune.